HURRICANE CHARLEY
In 2004, Hurricane Charley passed through the Caribbean, and then on to the USA.
Here is the text of an e-mail I received via a friend of someone from the UK who was in the USA when Hurricane Charley hit:
"We have just got back off holiday in Florida - we had a good time despite Hurricane Charley that you might have seen in the news. It actually hit Jamaica first.... it certainly made for an eventful holiday although not something I would have chosen. The TV kept going on about what a historical event it was that there were 2 hurricanes due to hit Florida at the same time, and this had not happened since 1904 - being part of history seemed like little consolation for a ruined holiday! Hurricane Bonnie, the first to hit, had calmed down by the time it hit land and it was some way away from us but we still got dull skies, rain and choppy seas.
On the same day as Bonnie hit land further up (and the day before Charley was due) we were evacuated (along with 1 million other people from the area) - when you watched the news the predicted route was a bit like watching a 'You are Here' arrow as we were due to get the eye.
We had to drive as far as Orlando to get a hotel room: a 2 to 3 hour drive away as hotel rooms up to that point had been full. I was getting nervous as we couldn't find a hotel room and I had visions of us being out in it all so we just took the first one we could find in Orlando even though it was expensive. Ironically, the damn thing then changed its mind and moved down the coast slightly. Its new predicted route meant that we had moved right into its path again and it had gone up to a category 4 from a 2! Things wouldn't be as bad as on the coast but they said it was going to be very damaging to the area. Everything closed on the Friday - even the theme parks - and we just sat watching TV all day watching it come in. The worst hit us at around 8pm at night - wow - it was like nothing you can imaging, and very scary.
It was worse because it was dark and then the power went off at about 9 for 12 hours which made it even worse still.
We had followed all the advice and had food, water and a torch and batteries. Once the worst of the storm had passed we spent the evening eating crisps and sweets and reading by torch light.
Our room had a leaky window too, so that our room flooded badly. Every time you walked on the carpet it squelched and the room smelled of damp.
We couldn't move as the hotel was full. It seemed a bit picky to make a big deal out of it when many of the staff were potentially going home to a flattened house.
The area our original hotel was in ended up not getting any of the storm at all and luckily we were able to return 'home' on the Saturday after 2 nights away. The people there knew how lucky they had been - the damage it did along the path it took was devastating, but things would have been much worse if it had hit the original area as it was more exposed.
Some of the sights we saw driving back to our hotel were amazing - massive trees down, buildings destroyed, power lines down and debris everywhere.
A tree had fallen on a car about 100 feet from our hotel room in Orlando and it was completely destroyed.
When we flew home a week later the check in lady at the airport in Orlando was saying that she had only just got her power back in her area and that a tree had fallen on her house - they were predicting that power, water, sanitation and phones would be off for up to 3 weeks in some area.
Television news reports on the worst hit areas showed total devastation, with thousands of people homeless, and some of the stories were just heartbreaking.
It was a little amusing to get back home and the first thing we saw was the weather forecaster saying that the next few days were going to be wet because it was the tail end of Hurricane Danielle. 3 hurricanes in 2 weeks - is that a record ?